more than meets the eye

A blistering summer yester-day, I took air conditioned refuge in the local art house cinema. Inside, Tom Shadyac's lively documentary "I Am" entertained the questions, What's wrong with the world and what can we do about it, in a "What the Bleep" format of exploration. Known for his mega-successful comedies, the writer/director/co-star contemplates these spiritual concepts after suffering an about-face traumatic bicycle accident. His interest derives from the realization that although he has accumulated vast wealth, it has failed to secure lasting happiness. He attempts to investigate the root cause of this disfunction and discovers that ultimately, things are not what they seem.

Following the film, I began browsing in the Tattered Cover, Denver's premiere independent bookseller, and as always, gravitated to the Religious/Philosphical section. Out of the myriad of selections that surrounded me, I was first pulled toward familiar authors and then, because of my background in book design, to those with beautiful covers. However, upon noticing that the influential and recently deceased Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck wrote the foreword to Diane Rizzetto's "Waking Up to What You Do," I became intrigued. In my brief perusal I was engrossed with her (presumed) premise, "Are we there to meet our current situation or not?" In effect, every situation in our lives becomes our teacher thus engaging the proverbial "don't judge a book by it's cover" slant. For things are not always what they seem and there is more than meets the eye.

Each act, every minute, contains profound meaning. In it we can open to the existence of the divine or we can pale in oblivion to the magnificence. Just so, we celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi this morning in recognition of that self-same presence. The sacramental ritual of the body and blood of Christ makes the beyond personal. We live through it, become one with it, as the material is transformed to that which is deep, vast, and fundamental. As the bread nourishes the seen and known body, so too the hidden inner soul. In a faith-transformation from object to metaphor, the carnal reunites our bodily self with the spiritual self.

Certainly a division never existed, yet through societal consciousness we often forget the inside truth. We live in the world as if blind. We don't see, we refuse to see, or are distracted from seeing the deeper meanings inherent in all existence: The cover hiding the latent possibility of the infinite. Of course any object can return us to this place - bread, book, or body - and in reality we don't need a protagonist at all. Only awareness can bring us to immanence. Every object contains the potential to go beyond that which we see. It's always there and never fades away. 

Whatsoever we do, whatsoever we see, has meaning more profound than at first perceived. Inside lies a depth that provokes gratefulness as its only response. In this amazing world of grace, Shadyac proclaims, "All phenomena, including the accumulation of material wealth, is a neutral phenomena, neither good nor bad," we just need to see beneath the surface. And that true presence restores us to fullness, the original state where reconciliation with ourselves and with the world takes place.

love, always,

pia